Edward Lass wrote:
>>OK, show me the XPath that selects the content between 2 separators.
>
> This misses the point. A lightweight separator should only be used when
> the information on either side of it isn't intended to be
> chunked[1][2].
But who said it’s always chunked? Maybe in the example of the book prose
which changes perspective either sides of a separator can be divided up
into chunks, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be. That aside, you
would probably still want the separator element:
<chunk>...</chunk>
<separator />
<chunk>...</chunk>
> If the content is separable in such a way that you can section it off
> without losing your place, don't use the separator (or sep) element. In
> those cases, section it properly. Then, you'll be able to use
> technologies like XPath.
That makes sense. However, as said before, it would probably still make
sense to write down a <separator /> tag between sections. I agree with
Orion that the separator is a piece of content as well, and not just
some applied styling to sections.
> The WD currently only reads, "The separator element places a break in
> the document. The default style for this break is a horizontal line in
> Western languages."[4] This should be expanded to address the
> situations where separator is appropriate and where it would be
> preferable to use the section or div elements.
I entirely agree. But that goes for all elements. E.g. the HTML 4.01
spec also has elements which are hardly explained. I don’t know exactly
how well this is done in the XHTML 2.0 spec.
~Grauw
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